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7.08.2010

I share everything with Husband, including my bank account. It really has nothing to do with the money and everything to do with trust. Husband and I discuss purchases, we don't ask permission. We are a team. We know how the other feels about money and the way it is spent and we do our very best to respect that.

We have no secret bank accounts like Suze Orman suggests. In my opinion, secret bank accounts are recipes for disaster. While I understand why she encourages women to be protected and covered, I strongly feel hiding money makes room for doubt and distrust in your marriage. Wouldn't you feel betrayed if you found your husband had been hiding money?

What if the money is not hidden and your separate bank accounts are disclosed? Could there be harm done to your unity?

{Don't these love bugs look like old time bankers? It makes me smile. Via }

What do you think? Do you share a bank account with your man? If not, do you have a specific reason for the separation?

23 comments:

I totally agree with this. There is a joint checking account and we do both have separate savings accounts, BUT we know how much money is in them and are using them to save for future purchases TOGETHER. If you can't trust each other then what's the point?

I agree completely with this post. We have a joint checking account and a joint savings account. My money is my husband's money, despite the fact that he isn't working right now. All major purchases we make (and even some minor ones), we discuss before the fact. It was a bit hard to get used to "sharing" my money in the first few months of our marriage, but now I wouldn't have it any other way - God says that when you're married, two will become one, and I think that should be the case in ALL aspects of life. Including money.

My husband had a hard time merging his account with mine- male ego I think. Now it's great. We discuss most things and I keep tabs on everything to make sure he's being a bit tighter with our money than he'd like to be right now. Our savings account is only accessible by me, so that money goes into it but rarely comes out, unless it's an emergency. Although the savings account is only accessible by me, I've taken the extra precaution of not attaching it to my debit card, so even if I am tempted to use it when I'm out shopping, I have no way of doing so. We've both been known to overspend, so this is a great solution for us.

We each have a separate checking account that we use to buy what we want. It's easier that way for us because I'm a spender and he's a saver. We also have a joint account that we transfer money into to pay the bills and it seems to work out great for us!

Scientific Housewife, I'd love to kindly pick your brain to learn and see another point of view.

How do you determine how much money goes in the separate checking accounts? Is it equal or dependent on your individual paycheck? Since you are a spender and he is a saver,is there ever conflict? Do you each put equal amounts in the bill paying account? Do you have similar long term financial goals?

We have joint all the way baby! People who have separate must not have children, I can't imagine how that would work, and also must have similar pay scales at their jobs.

Anywho, FYI Gwen when you reply in the form of a comment the person probably won't see because I know for myself I couldn't go back and check every blog post I read. I have my comments set to receive them via email and that how I respond.

We have our individual paychecks put into our separate account. I figure out what the bills are and divide them by two so we transfer half the bill money each into the joint account and I pay the bills.

As far as spending is concerned, I try to set aside money into savings before I spend on personal items but we agree that there shouldn't be conflict as long as we keep enough to pay for gas and groceries (we split groceries evenly at store). He pays for golf, I buy makeup or go out. We do try to save for the same thing (right now it's a car for him then a vacation).

Hi Gwen! My husband and I are finishing up a Dave Ramsey course at our church. We meet once a week for 13 weeks and anyone interested can find it in your area by going to his website at looking for Financial Peace University.

This class has opened our communication about money, encouraged us to dream big for our future, and allowed us to pay off one of my students loans. I would strongly recommend this class for any married couple (newly married like us, or married for a long time like many in our class).

Shelby has a good point about responding via comment vs via email. If you don't know how to set it up, let us know and we can help you! That will help build relationships with your readers if you can email back and forth.

As per your post- I agree that having a joint account is the way to go! My parents do that and so do my inlaws. It seems like you are holding back or hiding something if you have to separate your accounts. Or you don't trust them. Marriage relies a lot on trust and growing together and having separate bank accounts seems like you are afraid to do both.

We have a joint account that all of our paychecks go into. I have a separate (but linked) checking and savings account. Each has a small amount. The savings is there just because we never closed it, and it's a "we never think about it, so in a dire emergency we could buy gas and a hamburger" fund. The separate checking account I use only for purchases for Hubs. He handles all of the balancing of the checkbook and such (his Bachelor's is in accounting), so that way he won't see how much I spend at which stores in the months leading up to birthday or Christmas. Since the accounts are linked, he'd see really quickly if I'd been siphoning money into that account :)

It's taken some getting used to, but I think we are in a pretty good place for still being relatively new at this marriage-joint-everything existence.

right now we both have separate checkings and a joint savings and checking account. our separate is just for us to do things that we want to do. if i want to buy him a gift, i don't want him to know about it. we've tried the whole, don't check the statement this month, it doesn't work. this works for us & we never argue about money.

My husband and I share joint checking and savings accounts. It works for us because we both contribute the the household resources and we both have a say about how it's spent. I think having secret accounts is a recipe for disaster & often represents other, more serious problems with the relationship!

We have a joint checking and savings as well and I wouldn't want it any other way! Definitely think you need to be open about money in a marriage. And you are correct...two separates sounds like a TOTAL recipe for disaster!

We had separate accounts for 3 years, and although it wasn't a HUGE problem, it did put strain on things every once in awhile. We finally joined everything, and haven't had one money-related tiff since. I think separation of accounts leads into "conversations" about who is contributing what and open things up to selfishness and competition that are totally unnecessary. At least it did for us. So I'm a joint account fan all the way!

We have a joint checking account that we do most everything from. We have a joint savings account that's been deemed our "house" account. I have a savings account by myself that I had before we were married where I keep Christmas & tax money. We balance it out with the fact that when my husband picks up side jobs, he keeps his cash in his own stash. I have my savings account (that's really ours, just without his name) and he keeps his cash (that is always accessible should we need it. We joined our finances from the get-go when we were married and we've never had problems. My brother & his wife have separate accounts that they use for separate bills and the example they set wasn't one I wanted to follow.

We have a joint bills account, joint savings account & then he has a separate personal account. I have access to the personal account though, so it doesn't really matter. We used to have separate accounts & it made everything that much harder. All of my money would go to paying bills & he would blow everything in his account. I would make him write me a check for his portion of the bills every payday & then he eventually decided we needed to get a joint account :)

We have a joint checking account and cc card but also keep separate checking, savings, cc's and brokerage accounts.

I can't say it's the right or wrong way, just what works for us.

What I can say is that it's very important that women take ownership of their personal finances and understand what's going on(retirement included). Judging from the comments, it seems most do, however, research shows that women display much lower levels of financial literacy than men, which is a huge problem considering they live longer and are now earning as much. No, Glamamom doesn't spend all day shopping and reading US Weekly ;) I'm writing a book about this very subject. Kudos for posting about it.